Computers, games consoles, monitors, and mobile devices such as cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), navigation devices, smartphones and tablets accept input from touch screens. Some touch screens provide on-screen keyboards, including variations of the QWERTY keyboard. These on-screen keyboards may be used for text entry in small or large amounts. However, text entry can be frustrating. Mobile devices have smaller screens (often no larger than 4 inches) and thus smaller on-screen keyboards. A finger touch may occupy a significant portion of the screen. Text entry usually involves hunting and pecking with a single finger or entering text with one or two thumbs. Larger on-screen keyboards, such as those found on tablets, provide for a more conventional method of typing but usually lack tactile feedback and are more conducive to slides than striking actions. Text entry is inefficient for many users.
Other methods of inputting text are also inefficient. Handwriting recognition takes too long to form a letter compared to typing. Voice recognition is not ideal for many situations. Voice is too public a medium. Also, various accents and surrounding noise make recognition difficult. It is also difficult to port voice recognition technology to multiple languages.